Walking the beach in search of Treasure

Ribbed Cantharus

It rained in the morning, so I decided to take the boys out to the beach after it cleared. It was a beautiful 75 degrees for a short time on it’s way to scorching 90 degrees. We haven’t been to Honeymoon that much lately, because of the humidity and, of course, the situation with the sand fleas. Beach wary. But it was breezy and sunny, record scratch, under construction! The Southern part of the Oasis Parking Area is currently fenced off for a large beach project. The boys LOVED seeing the equipment and huge boulders being lifted around. So I did some digging online and found that they started some beach improvements, which will continue until this time next year. They are building 3 giant “T-Groins,” which is a T shaped rock wall. This will help keep the sand on the beach from washing away. They will also be filling the beach in with 149,000 cubic yards of sand dredged from Hurricane Pass. I am excited to see the changes in the beach, it always seems different every time we go!

We found a few good shells! Olives, Juvenile Fighting Conchs, Augers, Arks, Cantharus, my first Sharp Ribbed Drill and a gorgeous Paul Newman’s Sharks Eye. I was excited to find that Shark’s Eye because I just read on I Love Shelling about one Pam had found. They call them that because they have a true blue center!

I struck GOLD, I tell Ya. Wednesday morning I parked at the North Beach at Honeymoon Island, ready to shell! The waves were kicking up some treasures! There were piles of beach debris, which contain great little pockets of shells.

But today I didn’t even need to search that hard because shells were rolling in all around. Things got especially good when I parked at the Oasis and began to search the rocky shoreline. A near perfect Alaphabet Cone laying, waiting to be discovered, this part of the beach must not have been shelled yet!! I went on to find a bleached almost whole Tulip, Apple Murex’s, Lightning Whelk, Shark’s Eye, a whole Cyclinella clam, Fighting Conch everywhere, Juvenile Fighting Conchs, Augers and Turbans galore.

But then I stopped…All morning I had been seeing parts of Tulips everywhere, broken, but beautiful. Was this a sign to keep searching? Woo-hoo! There she was laying in a pile of minis (and a partial fish head), my perfect True Tulip! She is very small and delicate but the most gorgeous shade or coral! Today I struck gold my friends…

And that brings us up to today on the beach. Today I found 4 new shells for my list: Ribbed Cantharus, Florida Cone, Apple Murex and Banded Tulip. They are all small and I will take ’em! Banded Tulip, pretty close to perfect!

The windy weather brings out the Sheller!

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